Some films defy all sense. They are in some respects invulnerable to criticism. By the time the trampolining troglodytes bounded out of nowhere onto Caroline Munro I was well into understanding that Starcrash is one of these. Made in ’78 as part of the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom it shares some obvious elements with its progenitor, including light-sabers, a final assault on the villain’s base (which appears to be shaped like a hand that closes into a fist when attacked) and a robotic side-kick (who for some reason is from Texas). It also has a soundtrack by John Barry, features Christopher Plummer (wildly camping it up) and a villain played by Godfather alumnus Joe Spinell, a man who thinks that there’s a sun-rise in space. The plot is non-nonsensical, effects are cheap (with some of the worst stop-motion ever devised) and the cast spend so much time laughing out loud I can only assume they were high. Oh, and one of the main characters is played by a former evangelist preacher. It cost $4 million.

Made in Italy, filmed at Cinecittá no less, but looking about as convincing as a late 70s Doctor Who episode the film follows Stella Star (Munro) whose name means Star Star. She has a friend Akton who is magical when he needs to be and can tell the future, but refuses to do so. Somewhere in space cackling space tyrant Count Zarth Arn is creating a weapon to destroy his enemy the Space Emperor. This weapon, a fuzzy red-light, sends you mad. Unless you’re Stella and Akton. Or a robot. There are also Amazons. And David Hasselhoff as the Emperor’s son, Simon. Yes the hero/love interest is called Simon. I’d hoped that, like some of the Spaghetti Westerns, there were some clever Marxist undertones smuggled in. There’s not. It’s just crap. Even Caroline Munro’s wide variety of bikini’s don’t enliven things. And although I’m not a stickler for Science Fact in this genre, I’m pretty sure just crashing through a window would cause a vacuum and kill everyone.

Still it has some camp appeal, and maybe if squinted at through lager soaked eyes it might even be funny. But probably not.

At the end of Ratatouille the cynical jaded critic is sent back to childhood wonder by the simple dish of the punning title – there he finds what he has missed for so long; simple joy. Having watched innumerable films of varying quality I often find myself feeling jaded – familiarity with the form can breed, if not contempt exactly, an ennui. Then along comes a crazy bonkers film like Turbo Kid and a tantalizing moment of long forgotten simple childhood joy in films comes rushing back. I watched with a smile plastered across my face as the future wasteland of 1997 was invaded by BMX chases and robotic love. It’s the film we all wanted in the 1980s but never quite got, at once innocent and ridiculously violent, following an naive young man as he embraces his destiny to save the wasteland from the evil Zeus (Michael Ironside!) and his henchmen (who, correctly, have been dressed out of a sporting goods store). It’s like someone put BMX Bandits, Cyborg, Solar Babies, Mad Max and Cherry 2000 into a blender, and out spurted this wonderful madness.

Kudos must go to the writers and director for hitting the right balance between pastiche and parody; the film mock 80s cliches but never ridicules them. It also showcases some of the barmiest violence I’ve seen in ages, my favourite moments involving disembowelment via BMX.

As a dedicated practitioner of the pedagogical arts I thought I should check this out to see if I could glean any tips to enhance my work. Well, first I think it’s safe to say one should never put one’s inner-city war-zone school into an experiment with a crazy eyed Stacy Keach who is determined to use reprogrammed military hard-ware as a solution to the campiest gangs since The Warriors. Also appointing Malcolm McDowall as Principal is probably a bad idea. And when one of the teachers is Pam Grier (pre-Tarantino) you’ve got to realise things will go South pretty quickly.

This B-Movie feels like someone locked the Blackboard Jungle in a room with The Terminator and supplied some Barry White CDs and Viagra. And while it’s not without its fun it suffers from a poorly conceived world in which parts of America have become “Free-Fire” zones where the police won’t go but where the Government is still funding public education. Like many future shock films it fails to answer important questions such as: where do they get all the hair gel from? How can these losers afford so many bullets? And why would McDowall’s Principal allow his peppy daughter to attend such a hell hole?

So, not great then. But fun can be had, particularly in the last 20 minutes where the budget is thoroughly used up on some dodgy pyrotechnics and stop motion work. Was enough of a cult hit to get a DTV sequel.

O Canada! Such a civilized and cultured place. As someone once told me it’s America, run by the Swiss. And yet beneath that genial Canuck exterior lurks a dark underbelly that produced David Cronenberg, James Cameron, and Atom Egoyan. And now comes Lowell Dean a man who thinks the best way to depict a werewolf transformation is to begin with the penis. Genius.

Wolfcop is not the best film ever, but I’m glad it exists. At a brisk 79 minutes it flies by following its loser protagonist Lou Garou (Leo Fafard) as he wakes one morning with vague memories of a black magic ritual. As he turns from Cop to Wolfcop a lot of fun is had, especially as it turns Lou from a very poor police officer to a very effective lycanthropic defender of law and order (if a little violent. If tearing of someone’s face is considered violent. Which it is. Even in Canada). The whole film plays as a homage to classic campy 80s horror (thing The Howling & Vamp), and is maybe a little too self-aware at times, but generally it takes its ludicrous premise to the right extremes including the best human/werewolf sex scene you’ll see this year. All to a bespoke synth soundtrack.

I wish it had a little more money for the finale, but up till then it’s great and includes some wonderful practical effects answering questions such as “What happens to the human skin a werewolf sheds?” and “What would an alcoholic werewolf be like?” Finally we know. Wolfcop 2 has been announced. Well done Canada.

This is a fun little B horror, enjoying the culturally ingrained fetishisms that surround the healthcare profession and stirring in its own happy brand of weird. The film follows Abby (Paz de la Huerta) who narrates the film in a Kill Bill style as she persues her quest to punish men that she judges are letting down their wives and families. Her murderous honey-trap develops however when she mentors new nurse Danni (Katrina Bowden), and develops a dangerous obsession.

A proper exploitation film full of nudity and violence Nurse is good fun if you don’t think too hard about it. Well shot and at times quite inventive it builds its elements of body horror steadily until a Hospital becomes covered in blood. Abby is a nice addition to the slasher villain roll-call, which really has too few women on it. I couldn’t quite decide if Paz de la Huerta’s performance was eccentric or just plain bad, but it was always entertaining and the film builds to a fun if decidedly OTT finale. Katrina Bowden does a good line in not-so-defenseless damsel and Judd Nelson (of the 1980s!) provides good support, with Kathleen Turner in a quick cameo (that voice is still to die for). Could do without the CGI blood – whatever happened to condoms filled with corn-syrup? – but for an hour and a half of cheap thrills you can’t go too wrong with this.

In June 1985 flight TWA 847 was hijacked by Islamic extremists after taking off from Athens. A tense drama unfolded, in which the hijackers segregated all the passengers with Jewish sounding names, beat others and eventually killed Robert Stetham a USA Navy Diver. His body was dumped onto the tarmac of Beirut International Airport. A complex situation developed with the plane being shunted between airports in Beirut and Algiers with some hostages being released and the Jewish ones being taken off the plane and held hostage in Beirut. Eventually after extensive negotiations between the terrorists and the Reagan administration the passengers were released. It’s a fascinating and scary story that would no doubt make a great film. The Delta Force is not that film. The Delta Force is Cannon Film, directed by its joint head honcho, and therefore decides to take this incredible true story and stitch it Frankenstein like to a Chuck Norris movie. Its not one of his better ones (relatively speaking). It’s also Lee Marvin’s last film. It’s very far from one of his better ones.

Chuck plays Scott McCoy who has abandoned the Special Forces in the first few minutes of the film because those damn democratically elected ass-holes in Washington are getting in the way of him doing his job. Then the film turns into a hostage drama which appears to have been made by people who took Airplane! seriously. A litany of disaster movie veterans appear (Robert Vaughan, Shelley Winters, and George Fucking Kennedy) as a blacked up Robert Forster scowls and threatens with his moustache. Occasionally an interesting film pokes its nose out, a film that might peer into the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict, acknowledging that everyone in these types of story is a loser. Then Golan’s instincts cut in and it’s the annoying kid and her Cabbage Patch Doll, the heavy handing references to the Nazi work Camps or it’s Chuck, hair flowing like a rampant Lion’s mane, sat astride a motorbike that has twin rocket launches – Fuck Yeah! Because it’s not part of the true story Golan has to shoe horn in his action film to the real-life hostage drama (and believe me, bits of the film are straight out of the real events) creating a horribly uneven tone that at one points begs to be taken seriously, then asks you to watch as Chuck rides his bike through a window and into Forster. All the while Alan Silvestri pounds out a score that sounds oddly like the soundtrack to Hot Shots! It’s an awful way to use a real-life event to power a film; utterly exploitative trash. United 93 demonstrates how to do this sort of thing well and avoid the smell of money being made over real people’s deaths. What’s worse it’s often boring. Unless you like Chuck’s hair and beard combo. He such a real man. You can tell because he eats his scrambled eggs while stood up. Chuch don’t have time to sit.

On hearing of the death of Christopher Lee, at the ripe old age of 92, I’m both saddened at his loss, but overwhelmingly grateful for his contribution to film; he seems almost written across my film-history being part of many beloved films from the independent and weird to gigantic Hollywood productions. His films were not always great, but he was always great in them. Look no further than Star Wars Episode II. For the most part a terrible, terrible film. But then Lee looms across the screen and, taking from Harrison Ford’s famous quote, he can say that shit.

Personally I’ll remember him for two roles that I loved from childhood: Scaramanga & Rochefort. In both he displays the avuncular charm we all expected, but he also conveyed a cruel charm in The Man With the Golden Gun and an often overlooked talent in comedy in The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. There are so many other greats the obvious (Dracula, The Wicker Man, Lord of the Rings) and maybe not so obvious (The Devil Rides Out) and the oddly compelling (The Return of Captain Invincible in which many of us first heard his rather good baritone). The 1980s weren’t the greatest decade after the heights of the 1960s & 70s, but the love he inspired in film-makers as diverse as Joe Dante, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson let us realize just how good he was in the 90s and later. He conveyed a level of gravitas that’s rare in an actor, belaying his origins at Rank’s Charm-school.

Apparently he appeared in more films than anyone else in the history of cinema, many of them with his equal Peter Cushing. Some were terrible. Some were amazing. He was always brilliant (and yes I include Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow in this).

All this nostalgia for Cannon Film (read here) got me excited to watch a Chuck Norris action spectacular. And what could be more spectacular than the film Cannon gave a black tie premier for (in their car-park)? Damn straight. Pull on your Chuck Norris Action Jeans (only $19.95 at your nearest hairy chested true ‘Merican retailer) and sit through the car-crash of Invasion USA, $12 million worth of kicking, shooting, punching, Chuck Norris fury. Watch as Terrorists invade ‘Merica with a plan to sow disruption and chaos through their violent acts and cunning disguises, and their indeterminate ethnicities (perhaps they’re from Terrorania?). Stare in awe as Chuck squints through one hour and 47 minutes of disjointed story full of those classic 80s action cliches you know and love: Spunky lady reporter! Titty bar! Pimps! Unnecessary killing of random innocents! A Hero dragged out of retirement for ONE LAST JOB!

Even my willingness to see the best of any old tripe was sorely tested by this one. Ironically it’s not that badly made; the action is serviceable, which is the main point. It’s just that everything is so generic, it tries so hard and it’s edited to a snail’s pace. Norris doesn’t help, he appears to have two expressions; squinty and chewing gum. He plays Matt Hunter who once worked for THE AGENCY and rues the day he let villain Rostov live (when he isn’t mud-wrestling ‘gators). He lives off grid, so only THE AGENCY and international terrorists can find him. Norris displays a spider-sense throughout the film – knowing instinctively when the bad guys are going to kill a bus load of white kids, or destroy a church, full of white people. Not around when the Latin-Americans get whacked, mind.

The bad guys’ plot is underdeveloped and lacks sense, but there is some glee to be wrought from their destruction of ‘Merican suburbs and malls (and at Christmas, the Bastards!) Despite their cunning disguises you can tell them a mile away – in the mall they make the mistake of stealing a Nissan Truck. Should have stole ‘Merican. Drug dealing is thrown in, along with a ludicrous amount of guns, including Norris’ Double Uzi Brassiere – a weapon so awesome no-one has ever dared wear it again. Only one line shines through; “If you come back in, I’ll hit you with so many rights you’ll be begging for a left”. No wonder the company went bust.

For those of us of a certain age, raised in the aisles of the local video shop staring up in wonder at the hand-painted VHS covers (so much better than photoshop) Cannon films has some fond memories. Bought in 1979 out of a lust to conquer America from Israels two biggest film-makers (Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan), Cannon had previously existed as a B-Movie specialist with one break-out hit to their name, the excellent Joe (John G Avildsen, 1970). But Globus and Golan had big dreams, and even bigger delusions. The figured that if they pre-sold the rights to their movies (which they were very good at) they could finance them and later films. It was a business model that worked really well, for a while, until they got over-ambitious and dissolved owing a lot of people a lot of money.

The whole fantastic story is well told in Hartley’s documentary, that makes good watching for any child of the 80s, or anyone who want to know how the film industry works (or often doesn’t). That Cannon, for a while, seriously shook up the majors shows the power of product, but their over ambition and hubris demonstrates how not to sustain a film-business. Their impact is amazing in many ways – helping to refine the modern action film, exploiting the power of film-franchises and creating the original mock-busters. I can remember fondly many of their films – some that I’ve revisited later realizing how undemanding we must have been back then. They gave us Chuck Norris & Jean-Claude Van Damme, kept Charles Bronson in work, helped the UK sustain film-production, recognized the importance of foreign sales and every now and then helped to create some weird and wonderful pictures. Films such as the bat-shit crazy Lifeforce, the wonderful Company of Wolves and the experimental documentary Powaqqatsi; they financed films from such film-makers as Jean-Luc Godard and Franco Zeferelli, letting them do what they liked to create serious art. But I’ll remember them for those hours I spent staring at Masters of the Universe, King Solomon’s Mines, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Appointment with Death… In many ways all terrible films. But good god I had fun.

It has taken me a long time to watch this notable classic of the zombie film. Finally last night I cued it up and good God it’s amazing, delirious and, in it’s own gory way, quite touching. Knowing of Jackson’s subsequent career only adds to the fun as you watch various limbs torn away, holes punched into the backs of people’s heads and the hero almost literally re-born.

Sure it’s a gore-fest, but it’s also a love story and a rather wicked satire on middle-class mores. Poor old Lionel, he’s dominated by a foul mother, who’s main concerns are her application to join the New Zealand version of the WI and keeping her boy from leaving her. Pacquita longs for love and her gran’s tarot points to Lionel. Sadly a rat-monkey from Skull Island (yes that one, apparently these creatures were created when the rats from a slave ship raped the local primates) sinks its teeth into Lionel’s mum and, then things get really weird. Stir in a kung-gu vicar, a grotesque uncle and a lawn-mower and a cult classic is born. Throughout though Jackson, and partner Fran Walsh, never lose sight of Lionel’s struggles and his love for Pacquita. Somehow this film manages to be scary, funny, tense, ridiculous, disgusting and surprising. Often at the same time.

Please avoid if the idea of zombie sex, zombie babies, sentient killer entrails, and 1950s fashion offends. Otherwise dive in. Also I haven’t laughed as hard as when The Archers played over a scene for ages. Might not look at the blender in the same way though.